2016 TERRORIST ATTACK TRIAL OPENS IN BRUSSELS

The mammoth trial against 10 men accused of involvement in the March 2016 terrorist attacks in Brussels began Monday, almost seven years after the bombings that killed 32, wounded hundreds more and shook Belgian society to the core.

The bombings at the Brussels Airport and at a subway station in the center of the city took place four months after a string of terrorist attacks in Paris. Both sets of assaults were claimed by the same cell of the Islamic State group, with many of its members linked to the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek.

The attacks in France and Belgium were the deadliest operations organized by the Islamic State on European soil, leaving deep wounds and several unanswered questions. The sheer randomness of the violence instilled anxiety across Europe and stoked debate about multiculturalism, immigration and the place of Islam in largely secular European nations.

As the trial got under way Monday, the president of the court — a judge who presides over the hearing — identified all of the participants, including the defendants and the nearly 1,000 victims, witnesses and experts registered as civil parties.

One defendant refused to identify himself, and another decried what he called the “humiliating” conditions of his detention.

Like the proceedings to bring justice in the Paris attacks, which concluded this year, the trial in Belgium will be the largest ever organized in the country, with more than 1,000 registered survivors, witnesses and experts. The hearings are expected to last up to eight months.